Search

This article reports on a study aimed at measuring and characterising consumer over-indebtedness in South Africa, despite the existence of financial regulatory measures and legislation. The study employed quantitative analysis to examine the impact of macroeconomic variables on consumer over-indebtedness. The primary conclusion of the study indicated that the debt-to-disposable-income ratio decreased following the enactment of the National Credit Act; nevertheless, the alterations in debt levels cannot be solely ascribed to the enforcement of regulations and legislation. The study findings indicate that over-indebtedness correlates positively with gross domestic product, consumer expenditure, unemployment, and the debt-to-income ratio, while exhibiting a negative correlation with the interest rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being one of the least liquid assets, housing is unarguably the most significant asset class and the biggest contributor to household wealth. The goal of the current empirical research is to examine the macroeconomic drivers of housing prices. Thus, the study examines the impact of macroeconomic variables and oil prices on housing prices using monthly time series data from 2003(M1) to 2023(M3). Generalized Autoregressive Score Model (GAS) is employed to appraise the time-varying relationships between housing prices and macroeconomic variables, as well as housing prices and oil prices. The findings resulting from the empirical analysis indicate that the housing market in South Africa is substantially influenced by macroeconomic factors and oil prices. Therefore, the South African government and policy makers must maintain strong macroeconomic policy formulation and environment as they have an impact on housing prices, which, in turn, have an impact on the welfare and quality of life of the populace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employed the ARCH, GARCH and EGARCH models to model the oil price volatility and macroeconomic variables in South Africa for the period 1990Q1 to 2018Q2. The macroeconomic variables used in the study are GDP, inflation, interest rate and exchange rates. According to ARCH (1) and GARCH (1, 1) models, exchange rate and interest rate have a negative effect on the oil price, while GDP and inflation suggesting a positive effect. The results for GDP and inflation imply that a 1% increase in GDP and inflation may lead to an increase in oil price. The negative effect on interest rate and exchange rate led by their negative values implies that a 1% increase in interest rate and exchange rate may lead to a decrease in oil price. The EGARCH (1, 1) model revealed that oil price is negatively affected by all the macroeconomic variables. This implies that a 1% increase in these variables may lead to a decrease in oil price. The symmetric and asymmetric techniques revealed that the South African oil prices are volatile. The article recommends that South African policy makers should have a view on the impact of oil price volatility on the South African economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural sector can impact positively the nation's development in terms of job creation and food security which promote good nutrition and boost well-being of every individual. However, in South Africa a developing country with a growing economy, the agricultural sector is still a traditional one with limited productivity and developments. Therefore, this study aims to analyses the impact of macroeconomic variables towards agricultural productivity in South Africa. The study used three variations of equations to acquire variety of conclusions to assist in determining which set of macroeconomic variables have strong impact on agricultural productivity. Nine variables were used to make the analyses of the three sets of equations and agricultural productivity as a dependent variable appeared in all the three equations. The results indicated that there is a long run equilibrium existing among the variables in all estimated equations. Overall results demonstrate that GDP and capital formation play a positive significant role in stimulating agricultural productivity. Furthermore, the results suggest that there is an evidence of causality between macroeconomic variables and agricultural productivity. In conclusion, the results suggest that for South Africa, in order to increase agricultural productivity, policy makers should give adequate financial support to the agricultural sector by ways of providing development skills and funding the improvement of agricultural infrastructure. In addition, the results provide guidance to the farmers on how various macroeconomic variables may impact productivity whether it is positive or negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent increases in oil prices have raised the importance of studying the effects of oil supply and demand shocks on an economy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the oil supply and demand shocks on the South African economy using a sign restriction-based structural Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model. The results of this study show that an oil supply shock has a short-lived significant impact only on the inflation rate, while the impact on the other variables is statistically insignificant. Supply disruptions result in a short-term increase in the domestic inflation rate with no reaction from the monetary policy. An aggregate demand shock results in short- to medium-term improvements in domestic output and the real exchange rate. The effect is statistically insignificant for the inflation rate as well as the monetary policy instrument. The inflation rate and the real exchange rate react negatively to an oil-specific demand shock, while output is positively related to unanticipated changes in oil price due to speculations. This study’s results highlight the importance of understanding the source of the oil price movements, since an oil price increase necessarily does not imply a negative effect on the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines whether commodity prices can be used as signal for informing macroeconomic policy in South Africa using the new approach for testing Granger causality developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995 ). Evidence of causality from average gold price to interest rate, money, exchange rate and the consumer price index was observed. Again, evidence of causality was observed from metals price index to interest rate, money and exchange rate. The results suggest there is merit in using South Africa's average gold price and the metals price index of the International Monetary Fund as informational variables in setting monetary policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]